


A Distraction

by IntoTheUnknown



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Because they are best bros, Ben's still dead, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, He needs ALL the snuggles, Klaus gives him ALL the snuggles, Klaus has pink bed covers, Look Ben hasn't had cuddles in fourteen years, Mentions of Character Death, Mostly Hurt NGL Here, Sharing a Bed, but it's fine, he's fine really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-19 06:15:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18132017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IntoTheUnknown/pseuds/IntoTheUnknown
Summary: The dead don't sleep. Klaus used to hate that, hate that he couldn't escape them, not even in dreams. He doesn't mind so much now.Alternatively: Ben and Klaus wrap themselves in a bright pink blanket and talk about their feelings.





	A Distraction

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly meant for this to be a short, fluffy one shot about Klaus snuggling with his spooky ghost brother and then it gained feelings. At least I got the short part right? 
> 
> Anyways the Hargreeves siblings all deserve so much better so I have decided to give them that. 
> 
> No Beta we die like men.

The dead don’t sleep. Klaus used to hate that, hate that he could never escape their pale, looming faces, that they’d find him in his dreams, screaming, always screaming.

He hated it even more when Ben died. When he was seventeen and his mind would replay that mission at night. Klaus had been stationed as lookout, but he didn’t do much looking. He’d spent the whole time slumped against a wall high as a motherfucking kite, he’d let the bad guys slip right past him and hadn’t even noticed until the screams started. He’d ran in just in time to see Ben and under him, a dark pool, spreading outwards, and the certainty that it was his fault. He’d shout himself awake each night, begging for his brother to wake up goddammit! only to find Ben peering down at him. 

Except it was wrong. It was all wrong. And it was his fault. 

Ben never screamed, never clawed at Klaus’s face, never even looked like the others, the other dead people that is. Klaus supposed he should’ve been grateful for that. He wasn’t. The lack of blood, the lack of sound, somehow it made the guilt so much worse. His brother, so ALIVE, perhaps the liveliest of them all, now nothing but a nearly silent shadow. 

___________

It’s been three weeks since the apocalypse didn’t happen and nothing has changed. Luther’s still daddy’s golden boy, Allison’s still mute, Five is still a complete and utter asshat, Diego’s still brooding, and Vanya...well to be honest Klaus doesn’t know what Vanya is, but he’s trying to find out. They all are. So maybe things have changed.

Ben is still dead, but Klaus finds he doesn’t mind so much anymore. So maybe things have changed A LOT. Because since that moment, with the drugs and the punching and the FEELING, Ben has been there almost all the time. Sometimes the others can see him, sometimes they can’t, but he’s always there. Klaus and him are always able to interact. 

He hadn’t realized how tactile their relationship was until it’d been taken away from them. They had always been touching Before, whether it be Ben leaning against Klaus’s shoulder at dinnertime or Klaus’s fingers around Ben’s wrist under the breakfast table. He’d always done that with the others, checked their pulse, made sure he saw them because they were there, not because they were dead. 

Klaus didn’t know how much he had needed that contact. How much he needed BEN until it, and he, was gone.

Now, almost fourteen years later, it’s back. It’s all back, and Klaus loves it. Of course it’s different, when Ben brushes against his shoulder it’s not a comforting press of body heat but rather the cold, icy, chill of the dead. When Klaus automatically searches for Ben’s pulse he doesn’t find one. But the contact is there and that’s what matters. And sometimes when his withdrawal symptoms get bad and he feels too hot and his skin feels like it’s stretched too thin across his bones and his hands shake so bad that he can’t hold anything Ben will hug him tight to his chest, and Klaus will cling. Because he can. Because they might never be whole again, and it might never be the same, and they all might be this shattered mosaic of a family but at least they can hold each other again. 

God they can hold each other again.

Maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s why it’s all different. 

Luther can hold Allison after all these years, Vanya, Five and Diego all huddle together like if they let one another out of their sight they’ll disappear, and Klaus? Klaus holds Ben. 

The dead don’t sleep and Klaus takes full advantage of that fact now. 

“You sure you don’t mind?” He looks between the bed and Ben with some anxiety, scratching absently at his arms.

“Dude. Get over here.” Ben is buried under three or four thick blankets (“why? It’s not like you need them.” Klaus had asked. “because I can. shuddup.”) - so he looks more like a burrito then a person, ghost, whatever. 

He looks comfortable and so painfully alive in this moment. Klaus doesn’t want to ruin that. “I don’t want to bother you…” he admits faintly, picking at the skin of his ‘goodbye’ hand. 

Ben pokes his head out of the mound of blankets and stares. “I have been a ghost for fourteen years. I have not been able to touch anyone for fourteen fucking years. And now I can so get your ass over here and let me cuddle you until you fall asleep goddammit.”

And really, how can Klaus argue with that? 

He bounds over to the bed and dives under the fluffy pink covers (he stole them from Allison when they were ten, she has yet to demand them back) -wrapping himself around Ben until he’s hanging off of him like a koala. The heat of the blankets and the ghostly chill of his brother makes for an odd mix, but it's nice. It's so nice.

“I missed this.” Ben admits after a beat of silence. He cards a hand through Klaus’s hair, slowly, like he’s savoring the sensation. 

“You missed playing with my hair?” Klaus is intentionally missing the point and he knows it, but he’s not sure he’s up for a deep conversation right now, especially one about feelings. “Gotta say, that’s a bit gay.”

Ben smacks him upside the head. Klaus deserves it.

“Well, you’re a bit gay.” Ben retorts and he can’t see it but he can HEAR the son of a bitch sticking his tongue out at him.

“Really?” He gasps. “What a shock! I am shocked I tell you! Who could have guessed it? Not me. Thank you, thank you for opening my eyes and all this time I thought-”

“Klaus?” Ben interrupts. “You’re an asshole.”

“I’m wildly aware darling.” He drawls, his smile wide and easy.

“I did miss this though.” 

Damn and here he’d thought he’d cleverly sidestepped the conversation about feelings. “What’d you miss?” 

“All of this. Being able to hold someone, being able to wrap myself in blankets, being able to read a book, hell, even being able to use my powers. It’s almost like-” Ben goes silent, his hand stilling in Klaus’s hair but Klaus can fill in the blanks. 

It’s almost like being alive. 

“I’m sorry.” He whispers. But it’s not good enough, nothing will ever be good enough. He feels Ben shift under him, shrugging as best he can without letting go of Klaus. 

“It’s okay.” Ben finally mutters, but it’s not. “It wasn’t your fault.” But it WAS. 

“I could’ve stopped those men.” Klaus admits for the first time in fourteen years. “I could’ve if I hadn’t been high. I was HIGH Ben and I wasn’t paying attention and those….those asswipes just waltzed right past me. They killed you. I could’ve stopped them. I could’ve...I could’ve-” He doesn’t realize he’s crying until Ben repositions himself so they can face each other, until Ben brushes a thumb under his eye and it’s too cold, it’s like ice and he jolts away from it until he notices it had come away wet. Then he realizes he’s crying but he just can’t stop.

“Shhhh.” Ben soothes, tucking Klaus’s head under his chin. “It’s okay. I’m here aren’t I?”

“But you’re not!” His breath hitches and he feels so small, he doesn’t think he’s cried like this since Dave… “You’re not here! You’re-” He motions with his ‘goodbye’ hand trying to indicate how not here Ben is. 

“I’m dead.” Klaus flinches. Leave it to Ben to be blunt. He clutches at his brother, pressing himself as close as possible until they are flush against each other. He’s gripping the back of Ben’s jacket in tight, trembling fists, burying his face in his shoulder. 

“No, no look at me.” Ben coaxes gently and when Klaus does he continues. “I’m dead. But I’m okay, I’m still here and I have had fourteen years to make my peace with, y’know, the death thing.” 

“Ben-”

“Shut up I’m not finished. And the guys who killed me? They would’ve killed you too if they had thought you were anything more than a junkie.”

“But-” 

“No buts. The guys...they knew about us Klaus. They knew how our powers worked, they knew everything. They would’ve killed all of us if I hadn’t ...if I didn’t…” He took a breath he didn’t need to steady himself. “I was a distraction. I bought the others enough time to figure out how to take them down.”

“Your death was a distraction.” Klaus repeats, sick to his stomach for reasons he’s almost certain have nothing to do with drug withdrawal. 

“Yep.” Ben confirms, sounding far too nonchalant about the whole thing. “And it worked. We saved the day, yay Umbrella Academy!”

Klaus finds he hates the world a little bit more than usual in that moment. There is nothing in the entire universe that would make him count the death of one of his siblings as a win. His own death? Sure. Their deaths? Never. 

He doesn’t even know what to say, he wants to apologize again but he didn’t know what he was apologizing for. For not dying alongside him? For not saving him? For their whole shitty childhood? Thankfully he’s saved from having to say anything by Ben’s fond sigh;

“Stop it. Stop thinking, I can practically hear you thinking, stop all of it.” He orders with a teasing smile that looks almost genuine. “Klaus I’m not upset about it anymore so you don’t get to be either.”

“Well that’s unfair. What if I wanna be upset?” Klaus whines only half jokingly. 

“Then okay, be upset, but it doesn’t change the fact that I like where my life, uh, afterlife has gone. I like the person I’ve become, and I like that I’ve got to spend so much time with you.” 

“Ah yes, I’m sure watching me get high off my ass every day was exactly what you wanted to do with your time.”

“Okay, let me be sappy, stop ruining it with your facts. Of course I didn’t like that. But I got to spend time with you, actual time, not just stolen moments when dad wasn’t looking. We got to know each other. Can you say that about any of our other siblings?”

Klaus thinks about it. And thinks about it. And thinks…

“Diego?” 

“Well, sure, but that’s only because he’s the one who pulls you out of gutters and checks you in and out of the hospital. And he did all that after we left home. What about the others?”

Klaus goes very, very, quiet. And realizes that he doesn’t know anything important about any of his other siblings. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Ben agrees. 

“Wow I hate our childhood.” Klaus decides. “I’m going to go ask Vanya what her favorite animal is.” He doesn’t care that it’s four in the morning and all he’ll manage to do is piss her off, he needs to know now. How the holy hell had he gone thirty some odd years without knowing that about his sister? 

“Not tonight your not.” Ben tightens his grip around him, hooking a leg around his waist to stop him from even thinking about leaving. “She can tell you about how much she loves giraffes in the morning. Tonight is for snuggles. With me. Because I have been very dead for a very long time with no one to snuggle Klaus. I have been snuggle deprived I tell you and I-”

“I get it!” Klaus laughs. “You’re a fucking drama queen. Okay, I’ll stay!” 

“Good. Now fall asleep.” His brother demands.

“Yes, because I can do it on command.”

“Shut up. Go to sleep.”

“Shutting up.”

“Not going to sleep though.” Ben notes. He’s teasing but Klaus can hear the note of actual concern in his voice. 

“Nah. ‘m not tired.” He lies through a yawn. In truth he’s afraid that if he falls asleep Ben will be a shadow again when he wakes up.

Ben seems to understand though, Klaus can feel him smiling, soft and sad (and Jesus Christ his lips are like ice. Fuck.) -against his shoulder.

“I’ll still be here.” He promises quietly. “I’ll always be here.” He sounds like he means it.  
“....ok.” Klaus decides to trust him. He lets himself nestle into his brother’s arms and wrap himself tight in bright pink blankets. For the first time in a long time, maybe forever, he feels safe.

The dead don’t sleep but that’s okay. They’re always there, but they make sure not to scream, they’re careful not to claw at his face or startle him with their appearance.

The dead don’t sleep, they keep watch over their loved ones, do their best to keep them from any harm.

And none more so than Ben Hargreeves.


End file.
